


The Scroll

by scarecrowstories



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety, Character Study, Gen, Light Angst, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 16:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20933054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarecrowstories/pseuds/scarecrowstories
Summary: A brief exploration of Magnus' anxieties after receiving the scroll from June in Refuge.





	The Scroll

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of those fics I've had open as a WIP for, like, two months, because I just keep not being satisfied with it. Which I think I've said about several of my fics, now. Look, I work on like, too many things at once, and eventually I decide to just post some of them Anyway.

"Magnus - if you open that tube, Magnus, it's going to be harder for me to protect you."

He whipped his head around, not seeing the source of the voice he'd come to recognize. There was a tugging at the edge of his mind that wanted to trust the Red Robe as requested. It didn't help that there had been something familiar about the voice when it dropped the distortion earlier, or the slightly heartbreaking way it lost composure when they'd rejected it.

"Yeah, bite my ass!" he responded, tossing those thoughts aside. He couldn't let himself start overthinking now of all times. He was Magnus Burnsides! He was all about rushing into every endeavor headlong, heedless of consequences. And besides, what could be inside the map tube that was so groundbreaking?

His breath caught in his throat.

Oh.

The sensation of static spreading like a sickness in his thoughts. It didn't hurt, but it was strangely familiar in the same way that the Red Robe's real voice had been. The more he tried to push through it the stronger it got. But there was no denying it: he was looking at his own face on a figure in a red robe.

Magnus quickly put the sheets back in the tube and rushed to join the others. He would confront it again later when he had more time. Maybe then he'd be able to understand it.

Though it had been a longshot, he asked for guidance at the restored temple of Istus, and received no concrete answer. While disappointing, that told him everything he needed to know: there was something significant about that damned static after all. He didn't want to believe it, but what else could he conclude?

It wasn't just visual, either. He could see the image itself of his face on the body of a figure wearing a red robe, and he could hold the image in his mind. But when he tried to have the thought "I am a Red Robe," it was like trying to override the self-preservation instinct that kept people from sticking their hands into open flame. His mind reflexively recoiled from completing the thought, withdrawing from the conclusion so quickly that it stayed beyond his grasp, maddening.

Trying to brute force the thought wasn't working, either. The harder he tried, the thicker the static became, practically tangible. It colored the edges of his vision, filled his ears, sat heavy on his tongue like the lingering pain of too much spice when he tried to speak the sentence aloud. The air thrummed with the static in every sense, filling his lungs like smoke until he thought he would breathe it out, only subsiding when he stop trying to push past it.

Later that night alone in the dining hall, he stared at the image intently. If anybody saw him, they would've avoided him purely based on the severity of his expression. He couldn't remember the last time he'd concentrated so hard on trying to understand a piece of goddamn paper.

Was this ache settling in his chest what the Red Robed apparition was trying to protect him from? Did it somehow know that the scroll would hurt him like this? Moreover, what was causing it, and what did it mean? How had he known what was on the paper? He could remember something about a Red Robed figure in the image, but who was it? He could also remember himself being in the image, but he couldn't connect the two.

"This is a picture of me wearing a red robe," he thought, baffled. When he blinked, his understanding of the concept distorted. Who was it a picture of, again? Wearing what?

Magnus tested the limits of what thoughts he could have without incurring the penalty of thickening static. It was the sort of lateral thinking that they had to use when discussing the relics with those who were not inoculated, a realization which terrified him. There was a logical conclusion to be drawn from that similarity too, if he could only just…

The Red Robe knew what was on the scroll. Somehow. The Red Robe claimed to be trying to protect them from something and sought their trust. The Red Robes made the relics. A Red Robe delivered the chalice to Refuge, and was regarded by them as benign. The Red Robe had said he was proud of them. The Red Robes were the Bad Guys.

"Who told you that?" it had asked, voice tinged with the barest hint of sadness.

And though they'd said everybody, Magnus knew that wasn't quite true. In reality, only one person had said that they were bad: the Director. She was in charge of the narrative, and the rest of the Bureau believed what she said. Whatever opinion she held of them was her own, but only she had the power to influence theirs. What if she was wrong? Or worse: what if she was lying? What did she know that she wasn't telling them?

"Maybe the Red Robes aren't bad," Magnus thought, heart pounding in his chest painfully. "Maybe there's a reason they made the relics that the Director doesn't know about." 

That thought hit him like a brick. What reason could be good enough to bring such horrors into the world? He couldn't remember the world being in such a dire state before the Relic Wars, so what could have possibly necessitated it? He wanted to believe the Director was right, but the more he focused on the alternative, the sicker his stomach felt. He was dizzy with it.

The next few weeks Magnus was unable to get it out of his mind. He spent too much of his free time staring at that scroll, transfixed. When he closed his eyes, he could see the blueprint, could almost understand it. Sometimes he felt on the verge of comprehension, so close to finally putting together what that image meant, only to have it pulled away from him at the last moment. It felt like he was chasing an impossible quest that had no end.

There were days where he woke with a start, certain he'd come to an epiphany in his sleep, rushing to where he kept the scroll to look at it with fresh eyes. And each time the second the image was before him, the static began just as sure as before. 

He felt like he was losing his mind.

His friends were getting concerned with his restlessness, asking him what had him so anxious, but he didn't know how to tell them. He didn't even understand it himself! The reason was on the tip of his tongue, as if perpetually on the verge of a grand revelation that would change his life. And it would, if he could just… But no. Every time, it eluded him, slipping away like a dream.

He too frequently took the scroll from its tube and stared at it when he was alone, hoping that this would be the time he finally understood. He was able to hold in his thoughts the concept that it was an image of himself, but not what that meant in conjunction with the concept of the Red Robes.

Finally, sick of being thrown into an anxious frenzy night after night, he sought out the voidfish.

Later, lying in bed feeling worse than before, he wondered if that had been a mistake. Instead of answers, he only had more questions! It seemed like the voidfish escaped whatever calamity it projected at him, and that it was separated from its family in the process. He felt bad for it; it must be so lonely in that tank, so afraid. It had lost so much. Something about that tugged at Magnus' heart, a quiet voice reminding him that he, too, had lost much. Maybe that was why the creature resonated so strongly with him?

Either way, the people with Red Robes had been with it at its time of escape; had they saved it? Had it saved them? From what? And where the heck was that place? Why was he there among them? Why did he have a red uniform? What was that silver ship, and why did Magnus' heart hurt so terribly to see it? What did it all mean?

That night as he laid in bed, tossing and turning more than ever before, he couldn't help but think, "What the hell have I gotten myself into, Jules?" Part of him wished he could forget these-- were they memories? They certainly felt like it. 

He wanted them gone. He wanted to be regular Magnus Burnsides, carpenter and adventurer. He wanted to do his part in saving the world from whatever threat the relics posed. If it was going to hurt this badly, his sense of self-preservation was begging not to remember. Hadn't he been hurt enough? Didn't he deserve a little peace of mind?

In spite of that, every other inch of him could tell that this was bigger than he could've ever imagined, and that it was his duty to get to the bottom of it. He needed to know.

"What's bigger than this?" he recalled, a hypothetical question posed in the crystalline laboratory.

He sighed, shoving his face into his pillow to muffle his frustrated groan as he thought, "Well, I'm about to fucking find out, aren't I?"

**Author's Note:**

> Shrugs let me know what you think, I'm gonna try to get a piece written for Taakitz week in the meantime. Stay frosty, my friends.


End file.
